Cancer ResearchLung Transplant Gives Stage IV Lung Cancer Patients 100% One-Year Survival
A prospective single-center study from Northwestern University tested whether lung transplantation could benefit patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) confined to the lungs who had failed all other treatments. Among 17 carefully selected patients who underwent transplant, one-year survival was 100%, compared to just 40.8% in 81 eligible patients who received medical management alone — a difference of nearly 60 percentage points. Remarkably, one-year post-transplant survival in the cancer group actually exceeded the 88.1% seen in 306 non-cancer transplant recipients. While these results are striking, the patient numbers are small and follow-up remains short, with two deaths recorded by extended follow-up in early 2026. Larger studies and quality-of-life data are still needed.
